Bioremediation and phytoremediation of crude oil contaminated soils has been studied based Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon content, using Locoweed and Sunflower as the plants for phytoremediation. The data was fit to models based on a biomass growth rate and yield coefficient. The results reveal that bioremediation and phytoremediation augmented bioremediation are based on the same mechanism. During both processes the biomass grows according to the logistic model (with inhibition as the amount of substrate is depleted) and the rate of production of biomass per unit substrate consumed can be considered constant. Locoweed shows higher effectiveness in enhancing the remediation process in comparison to Sunflower. Bioremediation reduces the contaminant concentration by about 65%, while when augmented with Phytoremediation, the contaminant concentration is reduced by 69% and 88% for Sunflower and Locoweed respectively.
Bioremediation, Phytoremediation, hydrocarbon, substrate, contaminated, model
